K- and Si-Metasomatism, Mineral Transformation and Formation of Granitoids from Basic Rocks in Qooshchi Area, NW Iran. A Mineralogical Context

The Qooshchi area lies to northwest of Orumieh Lake in western Azerbaijan, NW Iran. A basement metamorphic complex, consisting of Precambrian schists and gneisses, has been intruded by gabbres and diorites. Granitolds are grouped into five suites according to their mineralogy, texture and exposed features. The main body, pink Qooshchi granite, and apophyse-like, myrmekite-bearing granit-oids are discussed in this paper. On the basis of field observations and microscopic studies, an intensive metasonmtism has overprinted the country rocks, especially gabbros, transforming them into a more felsic composition. A prior event of intensive deformation and cataclasis preceded the metasonmtism, al-lowing the introduction of hydrothermal fluids. K-metasonmtism converted plagiuclase into K-feldspar (microdme), myrmekite, and sodic plagioclase as Si-metasomatism replaced the ferromagnesian silicates by quartz. Apophyse-like bodies within gabbros, called leucometasomatites, are formed during this process.     

An Analysis of Gsc0008.324, Newly Discovered Binary Star

A separate solution of the R *light curves was carried out using the 1998version of the Wilson's synthetic light curve code. In this paper we considered observations of Robb et al. (1999) for analysis. The photometry showed that star exhibits variable and asymmetric light curve. The asymmetric in the light curve is fitted with a spot on the surface of the hotter component. The fundamental orbital and physical parameters of this system have determined. The mass ratio is defined to be always q ≤ 1. The results indicate that the system is a late-type detached binary so that the components seem to be a very close pair of dwarfs. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Reanalysis of two eclipsing binaries: <Emphasis Type="Italic">EE</Emphasis> <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aqr</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis> <Emphasis Type="Italic">Vul</Emphasis>

We study the radial-velocity and light curves of the two eclipsing binaries EE Aqr and Z Vul. Using the latest version of the Wilson and Van Hamme (Computing Binary Star Observables, 2003) model, absolute parameters for the systems are determined. We find that EE Aqr and Z Vul are near-contact and semi-detached systems, respectively. The primary component of EE Aqr fills about 96% of its ‘Roche lobe’, while its secondary one appears close to completely filling this limiting volume. In a similar way, we find fill-out proportions of about 72 and 100% of these volumes for the primary and secondary components of Z Vul respectively. We compare our results with those of previous authors.     

Incorporating synoptic-scale climate signals for streamflow modelling over the Mediterranean region using machine learning models

ABSTRACT

Understanding streamflow patterns by incorporating climate signal information can contribute remarkably to the knowledge of future local environmental flows. Three machine learning models, the multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), the M5 Model Tree and the least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) are established to predict the streamflow pattern over the Mediterranean region of Turkey (Besiri and Baykan stations). The structure of the predictive models is built using synoptic-scale climate signal information and river flow data from antecedent records. The predictive models are evaluated and assessed using quantitative and graphical statistics. The correlation analysis demonstrates that the North Pacific (NP) and the East Central Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature (Niño3.4) indices have a substantial influence on the streamflow patterns, in addition to the historical information obtained from the river flow data. The model results reveal the utility of the LSSVM model over the other models through incorporating climate signal information for modelling streamflow.     

Monte Carlo analysis of the effect of spatial distribution of storms on prioritization of flood source areas

Implementation of structural and non-structural flood control measures in flood-prone watersheds is on increasing demand. Different watershed areas are not necessarily hydrologically similar and impose variable effects on the outlet flow hydrograph. Meanwhile, prioritization of watershed areas in terms of flood generation is essential for economic flood control planning. Previous works have focused on the definition of a flood index that quantifies the contribution of each subwatershed unit or grid cell to the outlet flood hydrograph through the application of unit flood response (UFR) approach. In the present research, for the first time, the effect of spatial pattern of storm events on the flood index variation was assessed via a Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis. To do so, the UFR approach was carried out for a large number of randomly generated rainfall spatial pattern. The proposed methodology was adopted to the Tangrah watershed in northern Iran. The watershed is frequently hit by floods that have historically caused loss of life and properties. The results indicated that for the more frequent flood events, the flood index is quite sensitive to the spatial distribution of rainfall such that for the highest ranked subwatershed (SW6), the standardized variation of the flood index values (i.e., the uncertainty range) decreases from 1.0 to 0.5 when the rainfall depth increases from 20 to 150 mm, respectively. The results further revealed that increasing the rainfall depth from 20 to 150 mm would cause the effect of rainfall spatial distribution on subwatersheds’ flood indices to diminish. The implications are that if flood control measures are designed for more frequent floods with lower return periods, an uncertainty analysis is required to identify the range of flood index variations.     

CAD-DRASTIC: chloride application density combined with DRASTIC for assessing groundwater vulnerability to road salt application

Road salt is pervasively used throughout Canada and in other cold regions during winter. For cities relying exclusively on groundwater, it is important to plan and minimize the application of salt accordingly to mitigate the adverse effects of high chloride concentrations in water supply aquifers. The use of geospatial data (road network, land use, Quaternary and bedrock geology, average annual recharge, water-table depth, soil distribution, topography) in the DRASTIC methodology provides an efficient way of distinguishing salt-vulnerable areas associated with groundwater supply wells, to aid in the implementation of appropriate management practices for road salt application in urban areas. This research presents a GIS-based methodology to accomplish a vulnerability analysis for 12 municipal water supply wells within the City of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The chloride application density (CAD) value at each supply well is calculated and related to the measured groundwater chloride concentrations and further combined with soil media and aquifer vadose- and saturated-zone properties used in DRASTIC. This combined approach, CAD-DRASTIC, is more accurate than existing groundwater vulnerability mapping methods and can be used by municipalities and other water managers to further improve groundwater protection related to road salt application.     

Evaluation of rainfall spatial correlation effect on rainfall-runoff modeling uncertainty,considering 2-copula

Lack of accuracy of rainfall-runoff simulation (RRS) remains critical for some applications. Among various sources of uncertainty, precipitation plays a particular role. Rainfall rates as the main input data of RRS are of the first factors controlling the accuracy. In addition to the depth, spatial and temporal distributions of rainfall impact the flood discharge. Most of the previous studies on RRS uncertainty have ignored rainfall spatial distribution, where in large catchments, it is necessary to be modeled explicitly. Karoon III is one most important basin of the Iran because of the Karoon III dam in the outlet. In the present work, effect of spatial correlation of rainfall on HEC-HMS (SMA) continuous RRS uncertainty is evaluated using 2variate copula (2copula). Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) approach was used to consider the rainfall spatial dependence. To reduce the computational expense, sampling efficiency and convergence for MCS, Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) was used. Copula functions consider wide range of marginal probability distribution functions (PDFs), eliminating limits of regular join PDFs. For this aim, two scenarios were investigated. In the first scenario, sub-basin rainfall was considered independent, and in the second scenario, 2copula was adopted to model spatial correlation of rainfall. Dimensionless rainfall depths were calculated for each sub-basin, and the PDFs were determined. The generated random dimensionless rainfalls were reweighted and multiplied by watershed’s mean rainfall value. Stochastic Climate Library was used to generate continuous daily rainfalls. Sampling from dimensionless rainfalls using LHS algorithm, 100 runs of calibrated model-simulated 100 flows for each day following MCS, and 80 % certainty bound was calculated. Results showed that considering dependence decreased 18 % of the maximum uncertainty bound width, so the methodology could be recommended for decreasing predicted runoff error.     

Near-infrared luminosity function and colours of dwarf galaxies in the Coma cluster

We present K -band observations of the low-luminosity galaxies in the Coma cluster, which are responsible for the steep upturn in the optical luminosity function at M _R∼−16, discovered recently. The main results of this study are as follows.
(i) The optical–near-infrared colours of these galaxies imply that they are dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The median B − K colour for galaxies with −19.3< M_K <−16.3 is 3.6 mag.
(ii) The K -band luminosity function in the Coma cluster is not well constrained, because of the uncertainties due to the field-to-field variance of the background. However, within the estimated large errors, this is consistent with the R -band luminosity function, shifted by ∼3 mag.
(iii) Many of the cluster dwarfs lie in a region of the B − K versus B − R colour–colour diagram where background galaxies are rare ( B − K <5; 1.2< B − R <1.6). Local dwarf spheroidal galaxies lie in this region too. This suggests that a better measurement of the K -band cluster luminosity can be made if the field-to-field variance of the background can be measured as a function of colour, even if it is large.
(iv) If we assume that none of the galaxies in the region of the B − K versus B − R plane given in (iii) in our cluster fields are background, and that all the cluster galaxies with 15.5< K <18.5 lie in this region of the plane, then we measure α=−1.41^+0.34_−0.37 for −19.3< M_K −16.3, where α is the logarithmic slope of the luminosity function. The uncertainties in this number come from counting statistics.